AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With him that close, it was almost impossible to think. He smelled fresh—like the woods on a crisp spring morning. But it wasn’t his woodsy scent as much as the electricity that seemed to zap between them.
Her entire body automatically responded to his nearness. She wanted to feel his arms around her. Something that simple, yet it was so overpowering she couldn’t seem to think straight.
“The movie theater,” he said, glancing over at the screen again before turning back to her. “We could probably talk Mike into selling it for next to nothing. If we don’t buy it, someone else will, and they won’t preserve the town’s charm.”
He was right. No telling what would end up in the space. She’d already had that thought earlier.
But the idea was preposterous. What on earth would make him think she’d want to go into business with him, let alone run a movie theater?
“Your family is suing my family,” she reminded him. “I hardly think?—”
He interrupted her then. “We’re not suing. It’s a legal complaint. We simply filed a motion with the court. We’re negotiating.”
Bobbie wasn’t sure about the legal mumbo jumbo. No matter what you called it, it was never nice to have an attorney show up on your property at the crack of dawn with a bunch of legal paperwork. And that was exactly how Clayton and Georgia met.
As the first preview died down, a brief silence fell over the theater. Bobbie rushed to speak.
“It’s also the condition of this theater.” She gestured to indicate their surroundings. “The chairs are falling apart, the sound system needs an upgrade, and the entire décor from the lobby to the bathrooms is heavily outdated. Plus, there’s only one screen.”
“That’s the biggest downside,” he said. “All the cosmetic things can be fixed, but we need to expand, and we need better seats than these.”
He was speaking as though buying the business was a done deal. It wasn’t. Not by a longshot.
“That would cost money,” she said as the next trailer kicked in.
He was close enough to make him somewhat easy to hear over the noise. She couldn’t say for sure that he could hear her, though. Maybe he was having trouble, which was why he was watching her mouth. Was he reading her lips or imagining kissing her?
No. She couldn’t think about that. If she thought about that, her mind went to places she didn’t dare let it…
Suddenly, his gaze darted right back up to her eyes, and he said, “We have ten grown kids between us. I’m pretty sure we can get a lot of the work done for next to nothing. We just need to buy the supplies.”
And her family happened to know someone who could provide those at a discount. But why would she even think that? She couldn’t possibly be considering his offer.
“You could think of it as an investment,” Gus said. “We put some money and labor into this now for years of raking in the dough. Once it’s up and running, we just need to hire some good people. The town’s full of teenagers looking for jobs. When we decide we’re done with it, as Mike did, we hand it over to our kids, and they can decide to keep it or sell it.”
He looked back at the screen, then faced forward. Was he settling in for the movie? His popcorn and drink were all the way at the back of the theater. He must be just taking a second to let her ponder.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, also facing forward.
But out of the corner of her eye, she saw him look at her. And now she found herself thinking about kissing him. She definitely needed to get out more. If she was feeling an attraction to Gus Knott, she was just missing having a man in her life or something.
“Good.” He nodded, smiling. “That’s all I ask.”
And then he pushed himself up from his seat, nodded at her one last time, and walked toward the back of the theater, leaving her to do exactly as she’d said. Think about it.
It was ridiculous. There was no way it would work. Getting their ten kids involved in renovating an old theater would definitely put them in the same room, though. Maybe it would give them a project in common that would help them start getting along. It could be the very solution they needed.
She certainly had the money. Her husband’s insurance policy, plus their savings, had given her a nice cushion. Her goal was to have enough money to keep her kids comfortable after her death.
If she went into business with Gus Knott, though, maybe they could work something out with their property. He might even be willing to forgive the entire debt in exchange for her putting more toward the theater. There’d be legal paperwork involved, for sure, but it could work.
She couldn’t believe she was actually considering this. But as the last trailer ended and the opening credits filled the screen, Bobbie took a deep breath and cleared her mind.
This was why she was here. To escape. She could table the drama for a little later.
4
Valentine’s Day hadn’t been the same since Gus’s wife died. The holiday had been a big deal to Sharon, so he’d always pulled out all the stops to make it special. Usually, that meant leaving town every year in search of finer dining. A couple of times, they’d even made an overnight trip out of it.
